


Fill your Boots

by TheHoardingPuffin



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Christmas, Fluff, Gen, Star Wars Christmas Traditions, little Anakin is adorable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:13:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21697501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheHoardingPuffin/pseuds/TheHoardingPuffin
Summary: “Did you clean your boots today, Ani?”, Obi-Wan asked as he put the used dishes into the small cleaning unit of their kitchen.Anakin looked confused. “No. What for?”“Tomorrow is the sixth day of the standard yule month”, Obi-Wan replied, before realizing. “Oh, wait, no – you don’t have yule on Tatooine, do you?”Anakin shook his head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. What is yule? What have clean boots to do with the sixth day of the month?”
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 10
Kudos: 91





	Fill your Boots

“Did you clean your boots today, Ani?”, Obi-Wan asked as he put the used dishes into the small cleaning unit of their kitchen.

Anakin looked confused. “No. What for?”

“Tomorrow is the sixth day of the standard yule month”, Obi-Wan replied, before realizing. “Oh, wait, no – you don’t have yule on Tatooine, do you?”

Anakin shook his head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. What is yule? What have clean boots to do with the sixth day of the month?”

Obi-Wan started making tea, then sat back down at the table. “Well… Yule is a row of festivities in the twelfth Corusant month that is celebrated on all core and most Inner Rim planets. Today is the fifth day, and Yule officially ends after twenty-four days. The last evening, people exchange gifts.”

“Even Jedi?”, Anakin asked. “What about _A Jedi doesn’t have possessions_?”  
Obi-Wan laughed. “Even Jedi like receiving nice things once a year. And there is more to yule than presents. Every planet has different traditions, and here at the temple, many of them get mixed up.”

“What traditions are there?”, Anakin asked. “Are there podraces, like on Boonta Eve?”  
“Not on any planet I know of”, Obi-Wan said. “At least not as part of yule celebration. There are Odupiendo races on Naboo on the seventh and ninth yule day, I believe. I don’t know if Queen Amidala will have them this year though, they are… expensive to set up.”

Anakin nodded. “What other traditions are there?”

“Well… Vasna-Berik people chop down trees and put them in a water stand and then put decorations on them – glass spheres and gold threats and little porcelain figurines. And people on Shili bake little flat biscuits that are very spicy. They’re called _pepparkaka_ – pepper-cakes if you translate the word directly.”

”Pepper-cakes?” Anakin shuddered. ”They sound kind of... bad.”  
”No, they’re good.” Obi-Wan got up, threw away the tealeaves and handed Anakin his mug. ”They make less spicy versions for the children, and those at least are delicious.”

Anakin ran one finger over the rim of his mug. ”And what about the boot-thing? What planet is that tradition from?”

“My homeworld, Stewjon.” Obi-Wan look a sip of his tea. “The night before the sixth yule-day, children clean their boots and the next morning, they are filled with little things. My… Qui-Gon and I started the tradition in the second year of my apprenticeship. I thought it would be nice to carry it on now. A few others at the temple have started doing it as well. Knight Fisto… Master Tahl… Knight Vos… most of my friends…”

Anakin didn’t know any Master Tahl, but at the moment, he cared more about this strange boot-filling-thing. “What things are in the boots?”

“Anything.” Obi-Wan shrugged. “Useful things, sweets, fruit… Quinlan always puts a pebble into all of his friends’ boots, every year.”  
“Is that where all the pebbles in the glass jar on the bookshelf come from?”

Anakin pointed at a large glass jar on the shelf next to the holo projector – about a third of it was filled with grey, white, black and brown stones.

“Exactly.” Obi-Wan laughed. “The stones of eleven years of boot-filling.”

“Wow.” Anakin nodded slowly. “Wait, what happens if the boots aren’t clean?”

“On Stewjon, unclean boots are filled with coal”, Obi-Wan explained. “Well, that’s what the children are threatened with anyways. It never actually happens. I think.”

Anakin nodded again, the got up, his cup of tea left untouched.   
“Where are you going?”, Obi-Wan asked.

“To clean my boots!”, Anakin called back. “I have no use for coals!”

Obi-Wan laughed quietly.

The next morning, Anakin found both his boots filled with various things – candied fruit from Naboo, a few screws and other things that he could use for his tinkering, a box with the parts for a model podracer… and a white, smooth pebble. Apparently Quinlan Vos had decided that the pebble-tradition would include Anakin’s boots as well from now on. Somehow, it made the boy very happy to place the pebble in the jar on the shelf.


End file.
